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Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic (Instrumental)

After 5 years of touring on Pelagial, the band started recording their 8th studio album in February
2018, split into two volumes to be separately released in 2018 and 2020 respectively, titled
Phanerozoic. The Phanerozoic eon succeeded the Precambrian supereon, spanning a 500 millionyear
period leading to the present day. It has witnessed the evolution and diversification of plant
and animal life on Earth, and the partial destruction of it during 5 mass extinction events.
Conceptually and musically, The Ocean’ s Phanerozoic is the missing link between the albums
Precambrian and Heliocentric / Anthropocentric.

Guitarist and primary songwriter Robin Staps penned Phanerozoic as he did its predecessors, in
seclusion in a house by the ocean. The first volume of the double album Phanerozoic is made up
of bleak and heavy songs, boiled down to the essential core of the musical ideas driving them.
With analog synths merging with the heavy guitars, the addition of Peter Voigtmann to the band’s
ranks has made a marked difference. After years of handling the spectacular lighting design at The
Ocean’s live shows, essentially “playing drums on the lighting console every night” as Staps puts
it, he now brings a bevy of angry, dystopian sounds to the songs. Phanerozoic also marks the
recording debut of bassist Mattias Hägerstrand and drummer Paul Seidel, who both bring their own
style and approach to their respective instruments.

As with all of The Ocean’s releases, the music is only one piece of the puzzle. The collective has
always been known for lyrics that are poignant and thought-provoking, and Phanerozoic is no
exception. The central idea upon which the lyrics are premised is that of ‘eternal recurrence’,
“Nietzsche's concept that everything happens over and over again, an infinite amount of times
throughout infinite time and space”, Staps explains. “When you look at Earth’s history you find a lot
of evidence for this: continents have collided and drifted apart across the oceans and collided
again, life nearly disappeared various times but then resurged again... this album is essentially
about time, perception of time, and repetition. It is about coming to terms with the fact that there
are things in life which will recur and which we cannot change and finding ways of dealing with
that”